Warwickshire have reiterated their commitment to playing at Stratford this May.

There had been speculation that the withdrawal of Warwickshire County Council's guarantee to underwrite the matches would see the venture cancelled but the county club, at a committee meeting yesterday, elected to press ahead with their plans.

"The game is still viable," operations manager Keith Cook, the Warwickshire operations manager, said. "We were close to breaking even last year despite the terrible weather and feel that the figures this year add up.

"The council have told us that they do not have the money they anticipated in their budget but that was only one route towards achieving our objective. There are other options."

Some Warwickshire supporters are unhappy at the club leaving Edgbaston without county cricket for six weeks in the middle of the summer, but officials believe that the experiment in 2004 at Stratford warranted further development.

Last year's advance-ticket sales - in themselves a rare occurrence in Championship cricket - topped £10,000 and the total of more than 6,500 spectators compared very favourably with matches at Edgbaston.

This year's Championship match (against Hampshire) starts a day earlier (on Wednesday May 25), allowing an extra day of revenue from corporate hospitality, before there is a one-day match against Scotland at the venue on May 29. The cost of hosting the matches is just over £40,000.

The team's status as county champions can have done them little harm in attracting sponsors and the club hope to make an announcement soon.

Meanwhile, Naaqash Tahir has been ruled out until the start of June. Although scans on the young fast bowler's back revealed no sign of a stress fracture, his soreness in the area is a concern and a period of rest and rehabilitation has been prescribed.

Although the news is better than was feared, it is still a bitter blow for the slightly-built Naqaash.

The news that two other young bowlers, James Anyon (shins) and Tom Mees (ankle), are expected to be fit for the start of the season will be of some compensation to supporters.